Expat wanderer

Mileage Makes Me Smile

We just got back from our road trip. This time we took my little Rav4 since I barely put 5,000 miles on it this last year. We put 2255 miles on it, and (Ta DA!) we got an amazing 28.814945436888241 miles per gallon during the trip, even counting all the in-town travel we did in Pittsburgh (yes, photos and write-up to follow, first we have to get unpacked and I have to get some laundry started.)

Back a long long time ago, when I was in 6th grade, my parents took us out of school for a road trip, and my teacher gave me several assignments I had to do while I was gone those two weeks. One assignment was to keep track of the mileage, the gas consumption, and to figure the miles per gallon. (I also had to keep a daily journal, and to see how many different state license plates I could find while we travelled.) I’m such a geek, keeping track of gas mileage has fascinated me ever since. Cars do so many things better than they every used to. Nearly 29 mpg makes me smile.

Travel over the Memorial Day weekend also made us smile. We expected horrendous traffic and found calm, rational driving everywhere we went, even through the larger cities. . . it was heaven.

I love road trips. I get time with my husband, I have him all to myself and as we drive along every now and then he will start talking and – after all these years – I will learn something new about my husband. Someone makes the bed I sleep in and irons the sheets. Someone fixes my meals, and I get to eat what I want. I get to see new things and take a few photos. This trip we got to spend time with a very special group of friends we grew close to in Doha . . . What’s not to love?

Daggero, I am thinking also that this story is about a teacher whose influence lives on something like 50 years later. That teacher wasn’t even one of my favorites, but the lessons lived on. How about that for a legacy? Teachers really are heroes!

You are so right. Once, for two years, I was hired to work at an outpost, on a base with a prison where sometimes my work took me to visit an inmate. The base was remote and the commute long, but of all the jobs I had, that was the best because most of the time I was working alone. I like people, and at the same time, working environments tend to bring out the worst in people. Maybe because they’d rather be somewhere else?